2005-12-04

"Smart Mass Thinking Putty" Armor

Ever since I bought some "Smart Mass Thinking Putty" way back when, I've wondered whether a similar compound might be usable as body armor. To be sure, this wasn't the most obvious idea . . . in general the material acts like somewhat gooey silly putty, and when it doesn't act like silly putty it's because it's been torn or shattered.

However, the basic idea was to have a material that would bend and flow but, in the event of impact, would act like Kevlar plating.

Well, we're not quite there yet, but we're close.

Add this to the list of things that would look goofy on televised sci-fi ("Behold my impenetrable jello armor!") but are actually workable.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This may be entirely possible.

Bullet-proof wests don't diminish the power of impact, but make it less "penetrating", and therefore survivable.
Such a thing can be accomplished by a liquid, in theory.

Anonymous said...

I remember seeing a thing some time ago about using the baic parts of silly putty for armor, since you can whack it with a hammer and collect all the pieces and moosh them together and you can do it again. It was supposed to be able to stop things, like bullets in the battlefield, since the putty wouldn't be damaged. The kinetic force was supposed to make it harden to steel-like toughness, I think.

Anonymous said...

The idea was for military applications, so I think it was on one of those military tech sites, but I can't remember. And those rib things look, like straightened cheese curls.

David said...

I agree, you could use a liquid as body protection, if it had the right qualitites.

David.

http://www.pdessentials.co.uk